Bach left for Lüneburg on 15 March 1700, together with his school friend Georg Erdmann. According to an old regulation, children of poor parents could attend the Latin school here and pay for their costs by singing in the choir of the Michaeliskirche and -schule (St. Michael's choir and church). St. Michel's church is what you see the exterior of here. An image of the interior is also available.

Bach (who had a much-praised soprano voice before his voice broke) and Erdmann were singers of the Mettenchor (matin choir) here and were paid some money according to the surviving payroll. Bach's choice for St. Michel's can, apart from financial necessity, be seen as a conscious step towards an advanced musical career. The school had an impressive musical tradition and had a famous music library, to which the great cantor Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius (1623-1695) had added many important music manuscripts and prints. Altogether, the library contained 1102 titles of about 175 composers at the death of Praetorius. Possibly, the foundation was laid here for Bach's legendary musical erudition and certainly for his profound familiarity with the 17th century German choir tradition.

St. Michael's also housed the "Ritterakademie", a college for young nobles, at which French music and manners were cultivated. There were regular concerts by the famous French band maintained by the duke of nearby Celle. Current Bach scholarship tends to stress the importance of French influences on Bach during this period.

At the end of this short period in Lüneburg, Bach appears to be be an organ virtuoso of some renown. Since it is impossible that his skills in this respect came out of the blue, he must, apart from his earlier training in the family, have had plenty of opportunity for keyboard playing in Lüneburg. Nothing is known about this, but it is not unlikely that he took lessons from the older Georg Böhm who came from the same Thuringian background as Bach. Böhm was organist at the Johanniskirche, the organ of which is shown on the picture here. This organ was, incidentally, in bad shape. Böhm also wrote French-inspired keyboard music. Böhm's influence is obvious in Bach's earliest organ works.

At least as important for the young Bach was the influence of Johan Adam Reinken, the 78 year old organist of the Katharinenkirche in Hamburg and perhaps the former teacher of Böhm (who certainly was in Hamburg for some years). Bach went to Hamburg several times in order to get familiar with Reinken's work. In the summer vacation of 1701, for instance, Johann Sebastian walked to Hamburg (48 km to the North) to hear Reinken and others in Hamburg. Reinken, of Dutch origin, was of the school of the great 17th-century Dutch composer and Amsterdam city organist Jan Pietersz. Sweelinck, who was a major influence on the northern German organ scene. Sweelinck, in turn, was much influenced by the virtuoso variation technique of the English virginalists (Bull, Byrd, Gibbons, and others). All in all, then, Bach not only underwent French influence in Lüneburg but via Reinken also considerable Dutch, and indirectly, English influence.

The end of Bach's Lüneburg period is somewhat obscure. He left around Easter 1702, presumably in connection with his application as organist in Sangerhausen. The 17 year old Johann Sebastian was unanimously chosen by the city administration, but the decision was overruled by the duke of Saxony-Weissenfels, who arranged the appointment of a candidate of his own.

This picture shows the Michaeliskirche (St. Michaels church), where Johann Sebastian's brother, Johann Christoph, was organist since 1690. Johann Christoph must have been a very competent musician, but he never made much of a career. He had been a student of Johann Pachelbel, a famous Thuringian organist at Erfurt, who had undergone Italian influences. It was from his brother that Johann Sebastian got his first formal keyboard lessons. This is, at least, the traditional view. Given the Bach family traditions and Johann Sebastian's talent, it is likely however that he already was a versatile musician at the age that he entered Johann Christoph's household. He also went to the Lyceum in Ohrdruf, learned Latin, and sung in the school choir. When his brother could no longer support him, he eventually left for Lüneburg on 15 March 1700, together with his school friend Georg Erdmann.

The Michaeliskirche was partially destroyed and remodelled several times and was finally bombed at the end of World War II. Only a tower fragment has survived. Although Ohrdruf has its Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Strasse at the place where Johann Christoph's house and the school used to be, these buildings no longer exist.

This picture shows Eisenach (Thuringia), the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach, with the famous Wartburg on top of the mountain (Luther translated the New Testament into German here). Bach visited the same Eisenacher Georgenschule as Luther did about 190 years before. Johan Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach (1645-1695), twin brother of Johann Christoph, lived here since 1671 as string player, town piper and court trumpeter, that is as a higher ranking city musician. In 1668, he married Elisabeth Lämmerhirt (1644-1694) from Erfurt, who also grew up in a musical family. Johann Sebastian was born as their eight child on 21 March 1685. His two godfathers, who gave their name to the child, were Sebastian Nagel, town piper of Gotha, and Johann Georg Koch, a ducal forrester in Eisenach. Johann Sebastian was baptized in the Georgenkirche (St. George's church). The baptismal entry is dated 23 March 1685. The official Bachhaus at Frauenplan 21, now a museum, is no longer believed to be Johann Sebastian's birthplace. A more likely candidate is a place at Lutherstrasse, where most of the house from Bach's time disappeared.

The Bach family was one of several traditional families of musicians, who were often organized along guilde lines and who earned their living as town musicians, organists, and cantors. The family had produced musicians for several generations. Some of them, in particular Johann Ambrosius's cousins Johann Michael and Johann Christoph (the family had somewhat monotonous naming habits), had become composers of fame.

Johann Sebastian's mother died in 1694 and his father in 1695, so, as a 9 year old child he lost both parents in one year. Of the five surviving children, Johann Sebastian and his brother Johann Jacob went to live with their eldest brother, another Johann Christoph, who was organist in Ohrdruf.

Compared to most other major composers, Johann Sebastian Bach's life and career were confined to a very limited geographical space. Born and raised in Thuringia, he never went farther north than Hamburg and Lübeck, or farther south than Carlsbad. In a similarly confined way, his east-west range stretched from Dresden (east) to Kassel (west). His complete geographical space can be found on a map derived from Christoph Wolff's great scholarly Bach study (Chr. Wolff, Bach, Essays on His Life and Music. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

The little map on the current page (derived from a Dutch book on Bach: J. Rubinstein, L. Van Hasselt, and T. Koopman, Bach. Terra, Zutphen, 1985) shows the places where Bach actually lived and worked. It is a clickable map, which means thay you can follow the course of Johann Sebastian Bach's life by clicking the towns on the map with the mouse of your computer. If you want to follow Johann Sebastian's complete Werdegang, just start with his birthpace Eisenach (bottom left), follow the arrows, and end in Leipzig, where he died in 1750. Thus, the right order is as follows:# Eisenach 1685-1695# Ohrdruf 1695-1700# Lüneburg 1700-1702# Weimar 1703-1703# Arnstadt 1703-1707# Mühlhausen 1707-1708# Weimar 1708-1717# Köthen 1717-1723# Leipzig 1723-1750